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Ex-senator Webb criticizes Obama over executive power

It's not unusual for members of Congress, past and present, to criticize presidents for excessive use of executive power. It is a little unusual for the criticism to come from a member of the president's part.

Ex-senator Webb criticizes Obama over executive power

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It's not unusual for members of Congress, past and present, to criticize presidents for excessive use of executive power, particularly on national security issues.

It is a little unusual for the criticism to come from a member of the president's party.

Former senator Jim Webb, D-Va., says that President Obama, like some of his predecessors, is too often exercising unilateral power without consulting Congress.

Writing in The National Interest magazine, Webb says that Washington has recently seen "members of Congress lining up behind the president as if he were a prime minister -- first among Republicans with George W. Bush and then among Democrats with Barack Obama.

"And along the way," he adds, "Congress lost its historic place at the table in the articulation and functioning of national-security policy."

Webb, who opted not to seek re-election in 2012, particularly cites Obama's decision to commit the United States to the NATO-led military mission in Libya in 2011. He also notes the president's frequent use of executive orders on economic issues.

"The Obama administration has proven itself to be acutely fond of executive orders designed to circumvent the legislative process in domestic politics," Webb says. "Thus, it is not surprising that this approach would be used also in foreign policy."

White House and Congress have clashed over power for as long as there has been an American government.

Those struggles became acute as the presidency gained more power along with the United States itself in the years after World War II and during the Cold War. Executive power also increased in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

To be sure, Webb also blames members of Congress for letting presidents exercise unilateral action. The title of his article: "Congressional Abdication."

The issue of executive power may come to the fore as the United States ponders how to approach such foreign policy challenges as Syria and Iran.

Writes Webb: "Under the objectively undefinable rubric of 'humanitarian intervention,' President Obama has arguably established the authority of the president to intervene militarily virtually anywhere without the consent or the approval of Congress, at his own discretion and for as long as he wishes."